Losing the carriers and oil reserves would have made the already severe losses at Pearl Harbor even worse. But in the long run, they wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the war.
Keep in mind the United States launched over one hundred new carriers during the course of the war. And produced over eight hundred million tons of oil. The comparable figures for Japan are sixteen and five million.
Not really. The Japanese were doing great till they weren’t. Indeed all American attacks against their fleet had repeatedly been smashed with practically no damage whatsoever to their fleet.
It all went south for them almost by pure luck in the space of five minutes.
I’m not taking anything away from the American pilots because they hung in there despite everything and ultimately got their break. But the Japanese did not choose poorly. They were dominating right till they weren’t.
The USAAF in late 1941 was a big force that should have given pause to any adversary. It was small in 1939, when the war in Europe started, but to call its growth after that “aggressive” is understating the case. Obviously it got WAY bigger but at that point included well over 4,000 combat aircraft, and the U.S. Navy had eight carriers and three thousand warplanes and was actually bigger in planes than the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The USA lacked experience in every respect, but the problem with an advantage of combat experience is that soldiers and airmen learn really quickly; it was a common observation of Axis commanders in the early stages of American involvement that their American adversaries were inept at first but got better with alarming speed.
The long and short of it is that Japan gambled that the Allies would not fight back if they were mauled badly enough. The opinions of Japanese military leaders were divided between those convinced the Allies would be persuaded not to challenge Japanese dominance of the Pacific, and those convinced the Allies would mobilize their industry to its fullest and fight to the end; the former were in favor of the war and the latter were not. “Letters from Iwo Jima” of course made famous General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who actually lived in the USA prior to the war and was quite convinced war against it was madness, but he was not alone in his opinions.
Japan’s assessment of American capabilities was simply wrong. The USA was more capable and more willing to fight than Japan had gambled on.
The Japanese thought a surprise attack was a good idea because it had been successful for them in the Russo-Japanese war. They thought starting a war with the US was a good idea because otherwise they would lose the war with China. They quite obviously were not thinking very clearly. The fact that the militarist faction was so entrenched that any acknowledgement of unpleasant reality (The China war was an unwinnable mess, war with the US would only make things worse) could result in assassination should be a clue why the leadership was so reckless.
Japan’s decision to attack the US was an insane folly by any rational accounting of the relative military capabilities of these two nations, and many Japanese military and political officials knew it.
Unfortunately, the government was in the hands of that branch of the military most committed to creating a Japanese empire in China.
The only way to avoid inevitable war with the US was for Japan to pull out of its attempt to create an empire in China. The US government had made that abundantly clear.
Pulling out of its attempt to create an empire in China would have discredited the Japanese militarists who at the time ran the government; it would have undercut their whole raison d’être. It did not help that the usual outcome to Japanese leaders saying that the war in China was a bad idea was to be assassinated.
They preferred to gamble than to fold.
I am not so sure it was insane.
Japan had dreams of empire and the US was standing in its way. December 1941 was close to a now or never thing for Japan and any hope of an empire.
Europe was in flames and not likely to bother Japan about anything they did for the foreseeable future and the US, despite Roosevelt wanting to, had shown zero interest in becoming involved in a war. The people were suffering a depression and figured they had enough problems without adding a war to the mix. This mix of conditions would not persist forever. For Japan 1941 was about as good as the world stage was likely to get for them if they wanted to expand their empire.
The Japanese knew they could not win a protracted war but they figured if they hobbled the US Pacific fleet sufficiently it’d take a year or two before the US could even think of causing Japan trouble. Time enough to capture SE Asia and lock in access to much needed resources.
By the time the US would even think of having a go the whole thing would be a fait accompli. Sure the US could push it and probably win but at what cost? Japan figured the US would say “screw it” and leave them be.
It was a dice roll but not an insane one and one they HAD to take if they wished to continue growing their empire. The alternative would have been for Japan to stand down and be content with their island and leave it at that. That was not going to happen with that crowd in charge.
I agree that they had no choice if they wanted to pursue their dreams of empire (and that the gang in charge wasn’t about to give up those dreams), but I do think it was an insane folly, and not merely in hindsight.
Certainly Admiral Yatamoto thought so; he famously said, If ordered to fight, “I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years.”
It is true that Europe was engulfed in war, which would prevent the Europeans from doing as much as they would otherwise have done to protect their empires in SE Asia; it was also true that the American public wanted desperately to stay out of the European war … because of bad memories of WW1, among other things.
However, the US was easily (potentially) strong enough to crush Japan by itself (in fact, it was strong enough to crush Japan plus contribute hugely to crushing Germany at the same time).
In fact, the likely outcome (were it not for Hitler’s equal moment of insane folly in declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor) would be the US facing Japan and not Germany. That is, that Japan would face the entirety of US power, by itself.
Japan’s only hope was that the US would be deterred, which is a pretty slim hope indeed - a massive misreading of the national character. Engaging in an adventure where the only hope of winning depends on the other side behaving exactly as you hope (and where behaving that way is unlikely) is folly.
A case could be made that the Japanese leadership had painted itself into such a corner that they had no choice but to commit folly.
In pre war Japan the government was extremely dysfunctional. Both the Japanese Army and Navy were practically autonomous and had representatives in the Cabinet. Any prime minister who opposed anything favored by either branch was quickly assassinated. This meant there was no one to oversee the long term strategy. The Japanese Army was not informed of the Pearl Harbor plans until late August and the civilian cabinet was not informed until November. There was no one in the Japanese government who could have vetoed the Pearl Harbor plan if they had wanted to.
This is absolutely true. What’s worse is that Japan actually did have the knowledge to see what was going to happen in a war, and apparently even ran some excercises to simulate post-Pearl Harbor. (Japan lost, badly, despite weighting it unrealistically in their favor.)
I’ve tried to understand the Japanese government in this era, but it’s sort of murky from the top all the way down, so its not totally clear why people made certain decisions. I’ve seen it credibly argued that Pearl Harbor, and the entire 1941 expansion drive, occurred not because of geopolitics, but an influence contest between the ambitious Junior Officers in the army and navy. Basically, small attacks got out of hand, and rather than planning policy from the top-down, it ended up bring driven from the actions of whatever local commanders decided to do. And as long as it worked, it was hard to stop; the military wasn’t going to let mere civilians stop them.
This. This was a pretty common perception of America…and it’s actually pretty persistent, since ObL and AQ kind of felt the same way. So did the Taliban. WRT WWII, Hitler et al also felt that the US had no stomach for war. In the case of Japan, they also felt the European colonial powers would fold as well when push came to shove and the blood started to flow.
Basically to answer the core quest of the OP, the Japanese leadership felt that if they handed the US a fait accompli and destroyed our Pacific fleet and seized huge swaths of the south Pacific region that we (the US and European colonial powers, along with Australia) would eventually sue for peace and not fight a long protracted war to take back territory that wasn’t worth the cost in blood and treasure to the US and others. We would, eventually, even start to trade with Japan again, since we were only merchants anyway. To many nations, especially those with totalitarian regimes, a lot of our strengths look like huge weaknesses. Even Russia felt the US was fundamentally weak and would crumble (they felt the same about all of the Western allies, though they were surprised by the UK’s resolve).
As for Yamamoto, yeah, he had an inkling about what could happen, but from what I recall reading he felt that he’s have a free hand in the Pacific for at least 18 months, and possibly as much as 3-4 years before the US could or would push back…and felt that if he could make it costly enough the US would eventually sue for peace. The idea was to push out the defensive perimeter so far that even giving up some of it later at the negotiating table would still leave Japan with a huge empire…and that’s if they had to make any concessions at all (aside from some symbolic ones they expected to have to make for the merchants to save face at home).
There was a Congress woman who voted “Nay” on war against Japan. Perhaps the IJN believed there were more like her.
ISTM they’ve felt that way since Reagan pulled out of Beirut. Their feeling was reinforced when Clinton pulled out of Somalia. Before that, ISTR their attacks were primarily against Europeans. But that topic is probably better suited to another thread.
Somalia was to help feed people, and it turned into killing people, so to hell with it.
But I digress.
It is a recurrent phenomenon: autocratic regimes convince themselves that liberal democracies are weak and fickle and decadent and will not have the nerve and guts for a tough fight or for long hard sacrifices, or the honor to answer a challenge.
Now, it’s true sometimes the democracies will not bring down the hammer on a provocation, if they feel it they are not ready or the risk is too high or public opinion is against it; and if you grind them down for years and years on end the people who can vote freely may get fed up and vote for someone who will say “screw this, it’s not worth it”. But that does not mean that they are *morally incapable *of the will to fight hard and long if given cause.
But China, rather than being a source of resources, was hemorrhaging money, material and troops. Japan was able to take Indochina just by hardnosed diplomacy. They didnt have to attack the USA. That’s one of the things Japan tries to lie about- that the USA forced them into attacking.
No, they could have agreed to pull out of China (except Manchukuo), and the uSA would have agreed to release the embargo. Then Japan still could have strong armed France into handing over Indochina as a “protectorate”, and they would have had multiplied their raw materials and land area without getting nuked.
In fact, if they had been smart, they could have declared as Allies and gotten to keep all that stuff after the war as a reward.
Not sure where they get this from.
The US has been at war for 225 years of its (nearly) 242 year existence. So about 93% of its existence the US has been fighting. Instead of an aversion to war it is more a national pastime.
That’s a pretty bogus figure. It includes counting the German Coast Uprising, (which lasted for one day, wasnt declared, and where the USA lost two men in the small fighting vs a slave uprising) as a Year in which the USA was at “war”. I dont know how that is a “war”.
Really, as far as “war” that effected any significant number of Americans, the USA has been at war for maybe around 50 years of 242, in other words, about 1/5th the time.
I think part of it was a lot of the Japanese leadership didn’t quite get how large the US was, and what they were capable of.
Even these days, I’ve had to deal with Japanese people who just don’t get the scale of North America; they arrive in Toronto and ask about driving to see the Rockies. And these aren’t stupid or uneducated people, they just have a hard time getting the scale.
Probably just a human thing we all do.
I have had several people who grew up next to an ocean (New York, Los Angeles) visit me in Chicago and were bowled over at how big Lake Michigan is when they see it.
They are educated people. They know they are the “Great” lakes. They have seen maps and can see they run for hundreds of miles.
But when they get here and see it they are just amazed. And I am amazed they are amazed. They grew up next to an ocean.
Just one of those things I think.
Whack-a-Mole, the Great Lakes are just &^%$# freakishly “Great”. And there usually aren’t really huge lakes right next to the ocean so there is seldom a good comparison basis.
Still quite a significant number. And FWIW the Brits and French have also a high batting average in that area.
But autocracies “get that” from growing to believe their own internal justification myth. They convince *themselves *that they are tough, fierce, committed to The Struggle, ideologicaly coherent, Machiavellian “realist”, prepared for Darwinian selection, etc., etc., and everyone else are girly-men, especially those who might back down because a majority of the people vote against the war.
Also note, pre-WW2, someone looking at the USA in 1941 would have seen a country where (a) public opinion was intensely against getting directly into the war and (b) whose biggest war ever was a Civil War, and most of whose operations otherwise had been cleansing their own native tribes, picking apart weakened ill-led adversaries (Mexico, Spain), or stomping around on insignificant Central American client-states. They may have thought their WW1 performance was a freak ocurrence especially due to their subsequent retrenchment into isolationism.